A/N: This diverges from films after X1, but does accept the film X-Men Origins: Wolverine as canon. 'Logan' has no real bearing on this fic, other than it inspired me to start actively working on this story again.

More Stories from this Universe:

The Kitty and the Bomb

Newsflash (Chapter 1 of "Bite Sized")

One

On occasion, Victor Creed found himself on the right side of the law, working government-sanctioned missions for the "greater good", or some shit like that.

This was not such an occasion.

Breaking into a government lab was old hat, and hell, he'd broken out of his fair share. But an errant scent, that scent, shouldn't have been present here and now.

Unless the runt had been captured within the last week, Victor knew damn well and good that his little shit of a brother was living it up in a mansion full of whiny teenagers. So, finding traces of him here, without the lab being already torn to shreds was wrong enough to throw Sabretooth off balance.

Victor broke away from the rest of the crew.

This wasn't a rescue mission so much as an effort to sabotage Uncle Sam's current iteration of mutant experiments, and the hard part was already done. They had no protocols on how to deal with the experiments themselves. It had been the general consensus that any not caught in the crossfire would be left to their own devices. Hell, his team might even unlock the doors and shoo'em out. Erik or the Cue Ball would likely scoop them up eventually, and he'd go on to the next job.

But that plan had just been shot straight to hell.

The area was too bloody to get a good handle on what his nose was telling him, and it looked like they had missed an offshoot of the compound. He followed a fresh trail of blood down a once sterile corridor to a reinforced door his team hadn't breached yet.

The door may have been made of reinforced alloy, but the glass of the window shattered easily enough. Fucking amateurs.

The trail of blood led to a frail slumped against a stark white desk. He didn't bother with her, if the glassy eyes and pool of blood weren't proof enough she was dead, the lack of heartbeat might just be an indicator.

Jimmy's scent saturated the new area in the way that only living somewhere long term would accomplish.

But that wasn't quite right. It wasn't James' scent, now was it?

He found the girl in a stark, bright room with a small gray cot on one side. Why they started making these places that damned sterile white, he'd never understand.

Not tall enough to see out, she'd been listening at the door until he'd peered in. She sprang away, and leveled Victor with a glare that shouldn't belong to a five year old. That look had taken his brother decades to master.

But then, the runt had spent his early years in comfort rather than growing up in whatever the hell this passed for.

Getting a keener look at her, the kid was scrawny but not quite underfed, making her look younger than what she probably was. She wasn't James' kid- she smelled too much like him for that. No, this one was lab grown, a clone or as close as they could manage.

Curiosity satisfied, Victor turned to walk away-

Until he heard the snickt of, four perfectly formed, adamantium coated claws sliding free from her two tiny fists.

Great, they'd built a baby killer out of Jimmy's DNA.

Victor should have left then; it was the smart thing to do. He didn't have time for this kind of bullshit, and he sure as hell wasn't a babysitter.

He wouldn't have left his brother in that cell.

"I'm a fucking moron," Victor announced. He wrenched the door off its hinges- the hunk of carbonadium landed with a satisfying crash.

The girl maintained her stance rather than rushing him. There might be hope for her, yet.

"Let's go."

At some point in the past forty seconds, Victor's game-plan changed from wreaking havoc unchecked, to ditching the mission with this little abomination in tow.

She stared at him, taking a tentative sniff, but she didn't budge.

He'd guessed with the claws, but that simple motion confirmed that her mutation was fully active. Unlike Jimmy at her age, being sickly all the time, this kid was probably a mini-warhead.

"Listen, kid. We ain't got time for posturing. You're family, so, you and me are gettin' the fuck outta Dodge. I'm taking you somewhere safe. Now, let's go."

The girl surprised him by retracting her little claws and closing the space between them. She solemnly reached up to take his hand.

Something stuttered in the vicinity of Sabretooth's withered, old heart.

"I will kill you, if you're lying," she declared.

Victor laughed.